Vehicles include many distributed control applications. The distributed applications include software that is executed on one or more control Electronic Control Units (ECU). The control ECU is connected to one or more sensors through a serial data link or through a direct connection. The sensors provide data to the control ECU through the serial data link or through the direct connection. The control ECU processes the data to derive an actuation command for an actuator based upon the data received from the sensor at any point in time. The actuation command is transmitted to an actuation ECU, which controls the actuator. The actuation command is transmitted via the serial data link. Some distributed applications are safety critical, and must maintain operation for a limited time, e.g., a few seconds, in the event of a fault in one of the sensors, the serial data link or the control ECU.